I am not a baker. Not even close. My first ever attempt to making banana bread came out more like banana soup. Not even sure how that was possible. However, as I may have touted before — There’s A Chef In My Kitchen and he is a pretty good teacher. With the guidance from Chef Hubbs, I have made the “best ever” dark chocolate chip cookies.
Ingredients For The “Best Ever” Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 4 1/2 cups of flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 4 sticks of salted butter
- 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cups of light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 4 cups (two 12-oz packages) Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Chips
The original recipe was modified to feed more folks. I think the recipe yielded about 5 dozens cookies.
Preparation is Key
I say sift it! Sift it good!
You may not like it or think that it is an extra step (and it is), however it does make a difference when you sift the flour. When you sift the flour it introduces air between the individual grains of flour and this helps make the cookies light and fluffy. Add the baking soda in to the bowl of dry ingredients. In the original recipe you’ll notice it calls for salt, however it’s omitted in our version as we use salted butter. This was a hair-brained-meets-serendipitous modification as your’s truly didn’t pay attention and grabbed the wrong butter at the supermarket but this actually worked out.
Pro Tip: Flour is not best measured in volume (cups) but instead by weight in order to ensure consistency. Two cups of flour can weigh drastically different depending on how well you pack it in.
Cream the sugar, baby.
Speaking of butter, it’s important to “cream the sugar.” Doesn’t that sound like the title of an 80s hair band rock ballad? Unfortunately, the best I could find was Whipped Cream by Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. So, actually, you’re welcome.
Anyhoooo … to cream the sugar, you will need to add the granulated and light brown sugar to the room temperature salted butter. If you have a mixer, pat yourself on the back. If you don’t, then grab your trusty wooden spoon and stir until the mixture almost resembles frosting or pudding. If you’re lucky enough to have a Chef Hubbs, hand off the mixing bowl and spoon and watch how the combined ingredients succumb. After the butter and sugar are homogeneous, incorporate the eggs and blend it some more.
Like preteens at a school dance, it is time for the two ingredients (dry and wet) to meet. Yes, it’s a little awkward but know it’s best not to rush it and continue to add a little dry to the wet until the mixture is homogeneous again. Take your cookie dough and put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes.
Drop it like it’s a little cooler than room temperature
Remove the cookie dough from the fridge and utilize two spoons to scoop out a dollop of dough. With the other spoon push the dough down the spoon until it plops on to the cookie sheet. Do this instead of taking the dough and rolling them in to perfect balls in your hands. When you do this, your body temperature warms up the dough and makes the cookies less chewy. It’s science.
Getting hot in here
When you bake it’s likely you are using a convection oven which, as you may already know, uses a fan to circulate hot air to help cook the food. For something like dark chocolate chip cookies it is important to set two timers: the first timer to rotate the cookie sheet and the second timer to take out the cookies. Now each oven is different so you may want to experiment with the first couple of batches to find the right temperature and timing that works for you. For us, we did 350 degrees and 4 minutes per side of the cookie.
The result? Gooey, soft goodness.
Cool it down
I know what you’re thinking, and I’m guilty of it too, but if you can try to wait for the cookies to cool down on the drying racks. In addition to saving the roof of your mouth from second degree burns you will also allow the cookies to “deflate” a bit.
Enjoy!
There's A Chef In My Kitchen 